The scars of a young nerd do not fade entirely with age

[Jammer]

Like many people who self-identify as nerds, gym class was not a happy place for me when I was in school.

 

Perhaps I had it worse than some.  I was uncoordinated.  As a kindergartener, I couldn't jump rope, or skip.  In grade school it became clear that I couldn't throw or catch.  Classmates didn't want me on their team, and were, how shall we say, not particularly sensitive in how they communicated this sentiment to me.

 

In turn, as I recall, I was not particularly sensitive in handling my relatively greater understanding of the sciences.  The situation became polarized.  Gym was an awful place.  After I finished my last required gym class in high school, I did not once engage in any sort of organized physical activity for the next five years.

 

Then I took some fencing lessons, because swordplay is cool.  I discovered that it also requires the same sort of footwork you need for jumping rope and the same kind of hand-eye coordination that goes with throwing and catching stuff.  I went back to nonphysical nerdy projects and cared deeply about my motorcycle instead.

 

Funny things happen as the years go by and after living in 4 different states I ended up back in my old hometown with three children.  Eventually there was a band concert that took place in the high school gym, the same one where I'd suffered through gym class 25 years before.  I went to watch my kid play trombone.

 

I was unprepared for the emotional response that occured.  They had remodelled the place, sure, new bleachers, new lights, new scoreboards, a bunch of padding on the wall around the thermostat where everyone used to hit their head.  But it still brought back, not memories, but a welling up of anger and frustration that caught me completely by surprise.  Frustration with my near-total lack of ability at the standard high school competitive sports.  Anger that they still glorify athletic competition and achivement in a far more public way than they glorify achievements in the arts, sciences, and humanities.

 

According to my kids, gym class is better than it used to be, and I believe them.  They say there's less focus on winning.  There's less focus on the highly competiive, highly athletic team sports and more attention given to building a foundation for a lifetime of physical activity.  They have various different gym classes now and try harder to place students according to their interests.  I don't know if that's universal or just something going on in this particular place.

 

I'm better now.  First step in getting over your hangups is realizing you have them, I guess.  As an adult, I've figured out that I respond better than most people to weight training, and that I have better balance than most.  I like to climb things.  I like to be outside.  I do not injure as easily as others and recover quickly.  So I'm finding my groove.  It took a long time but I'm at the point now where I consider strength and coordination to be worthy goals rather than something to be rejected out of hand.  I'm laser focused on strength training for now (long lapse due to major life changes) but in a few more months will have the foundation to be able to branch out into more movement-oriented stuff.  There was no such thing as parkour when I was 20, and maybe I'm not too old for it quite yet.

 

I doubt that mine is an entirely unique journey.  I'm posting in hopes that any of you whose stories are similar can draw some strength or knowledge from all this.  Please post your story in reply.

[emyerson]

Dude, I hear you. I remember, as a kid, a lot of my friends were into team sports. Aside from watching baseball (lets face it, the nerdiest of all professional sports), I never had any kind of affinity for team sports. Not for playing, watching, appreciating, talking about, or fantasy managing. I still have a visceral reaction when the conversation turns to sportsball. (the worst of all small talk questions for me is "Did you see the Big Game?!")

 

However, by the time high school rolled around, I learned that sports wasn't off the table categorically. Like you, I discovered fencing, and found that I was actually pretty good at it. Team sports can still suck an egg as far as I'm concerned, but I found a lot of fulfillment in the individual combat sports - fencing, archery, and the martial arts - which I still do and still love.

[tmac]

Oh, that all sounds so familiar. I'm the nerdy mom of three nerdy kids. I don't remember being bullied much about it, but I think you get greater latitude as a girl (for better or for worse). I played basketball in high school, but only because I was tall and sturdy and made a good obstacle. My two sons survive by being the funniest ones in the room. My daughter hates not being coordinated enough to keep up in gym, but she's determined enough to keep trying, and is improving.

 

I'm trying to be a good example of what you have discovered above -- that success in the school gym doesn't necessarily mean anything out in the world. I was crap at team sports. BUT: I can swim fast and long. I'm functionally stronger than most women I know and I can run a couple of miles, and enjoy it. I love taking my bike to run errands. Exercise and activity is for health, yes, but also for FUN. We should figure out what we enjoy, and do THAT! These days, I waffle between wanting to join the local running club, master's swim team, or rowing club. The very fact that I WANT to do all three is amazing to me. If only I had the time.

[insanity]

One particular instance sticks out majorly for me. We were in a class that at times we'd have free time to do as we pleased and I was watching some kids play hacky sack and the following conversation commenced.

 

Kid in circle: Hey man... you wanna join in?

 

Me: Sure *Starts walking towards circle*

 

Kid in circle: No no... I just asked if you wanted to play, didn't say you could.

 

 

 

I can also agree on the team sports thing, I wasn't very good at football, but track and cross country was a different story. They're both team sports in the sense that your team is fighting for points, but you're not dependent on other to get to the finish line.

[xoek]

I don't like sports. I don't like watching them, it's all so boring to me. I used to have a coworker who tried to treat me like I was less of a man because I didn't watch football and thus couldn't confers with the rest of the group when they talked about the games. Always acted so shocked when I said I didn't see the game and week after week I kept telling him I didn't watch sports. I hated that ass.

[Nubbins McGee]

Know what?  I couldn't throw a baseball as a kid.  I still can't.  I can't shoot a basket for shit either.  My wife, who is ten inches shorter than me whipped my ass in a game of 1 on 1 when she was seven months pregnant.  True story.

 

There is a reason to emphasize winning though.  Life is not fair.  Life is competitive.  Failure to acknowledge that for the sake of making someone feel better about themselves is not doing that person long term favors.  Just because the creation of society and culture does some circumventing of natural selection doesn't mean that we can disregard nature entirely.

 

Here's something else I know.  Everybody's childhood sucked.  Good luck finding one person who didn't feel alienated, alone, ostracized, rejected, and awkward at some point while growing up.  For that matter, find me an adult who doesn't feel that way sometimes too.  Those same people who made me feel like shit when I sucked at team sports, they felt like shit when I aced tests without studying and they worked their ass off for a C-.  

 

You learn exponentially more from losing than you do from winning.  

 

The things that make me strong now, the things that make me good at what I do now, are all directly tied to miserable failures and crushing defeats I've had in my past.   I'm sure there will be plenty more miserable failures and crushing defeats too.  I'll learn from them as well.  You'll feel a lot better if you let gym class torment go.   Seriously.   If you don't want to go to your high school reunions... don't.  I haven't gone to any of mine.  I didn't like those bastards then, I don't expect to like them now that we're all middle aged.   But man... dwelling on gym class seems like you've got a lot bottled up inside you that doesn't really need to be there.  You can't change the past, but you can learn from it, and you can make yourself better for it.   

 

I'm not trying to be a jerk here.  I hope I don't come off that way.  I also hope you find some peace.

[tmac]

One particular instance sticks out majorly for me. We were in a class that at times we'd have free time to do as we pleased and I was watching some kids play hacky sack and the following conversation commenced.

 

Kid in circle: Hey man... you wanna join in?

 

Me: Sure *Starts walking towards circle*

 

Kid in circle: No no... I just asked if you wanted to play, didn't say you could.

 

That hurts my heart a little. I totally understand why it would still be with you, even after all this time. Amazing how they're able to choose exactly the right words to hurt you the most.

 

Reminds me of waiting to go into a "rules and expectations" meeting for the upcoming prom.

 

Popular football player: "You here for the prom meeting?"

 

Me: "Yeah," thinking he's feeling chatty and we have this thing in common and how great is THAT!

 

Him: "Who would want to go to the prom with YOU?!?"

 

*Sigh*

 

Still hurts.

[Jakkals]

There was no such thing as parkour when I was 20, and maybe I'm not too old for it quite yet.

 

 

 

At 44 I'm at the stage where I am doing strength training in the hope of one day being able to do parkour. Have to start somewhere.

[SugarRay]

@Nubbins McGee; I always enjoy reading your posts, they're always so full of wisdom. In this case, I share your opinion word for word.

 

I believe that gym class back then is far superior to what we have now purely because of the competitiveness. Now, this is coming from someone who never really faced any trouble with gym class, but believe me when I say that I didn't start off that way.

I can't work in a team for shit. I can't play football well (in the UK, that's a big problem). Basketball was the bane of my existence. Tennis? Nah.

However, my failures did not make me say "Oh, I'm nonathletic. Let's forget about sport and focus on what I'm good at."

Why? Because I'm super competitive.

Too competitive.

 

My mess-ups in my first year of high school (in the UK, you start high school when you're 10/11.) were so plentiful that I was picked last in teams and I was mocked for my lack of athletic ability. As the majority of schoolboys go out to the field and play football as a means to socialize, I was usually left behind.

When I eventually realized that I was dragging others down because of my weaknesses, it hit my ego hard.

It was then that I started to box and I failed constantly. I was not a natural talent at all, I was a coward and I hated being hit, I struggled intensely with the conditioning.. but my shame, my repeated failures and my desire to wipe out my weaknesses kept me going.

It was only after this that I learned to enjoy gym class. It wasn't the fact that I was fit; it was the fact that I'd taught myself to persevere. But looking back, had I given up like too many non-athletic kids do, I'd probably still be a little weakling.

 

The moral of the above story is that getting rid of competitiveness is just asking for standards to drop.

Competitiveness is a good thing, and those who can't deal with it will be stuck down by life repeatedly. Getting youngsters used to competitiveness in sport will have a knock on effect on a lot of other things.

Failure is a means to succeed. Mockery is fuel for success. Don't believe me? Ask that one guy who became the best student in his school because of the taunts he received from bullies. Yeah, that one guy who ended up being one of the greatest scientists of all time: Isaac Newton.

[StillWaters]

I don't personally have any bad gym experiences, but in elementary school (k-5 here in th US) I witnessed multiple times when the less athletic kids were treated badly. IMO, I think some schools encourage the dark side of competition, or at the very least, passively allow it to happen. I'm all for competition, but only the kind that encourages people to improve their weaknesses, not tear others down.

[stealthstitcher]

I still get gym rage some days. Something will trigger a memory and I start thinking about that wretched gym class and that bellowing, insulting gym teacher and I get madder and madder and have to remind myself - cool down. That was years ago. It has nothing to with now, and getting enraged over it is hurting nobody but me. Besides, maybe that gym teacher was going through a rough divorce, or was hating the fact that he wasn't good enough to make it in sports and ended up teaching gym to elementary students. Or maybe he was just a jerk. Either way, I don't have to deal with him any more.

Once specific memory - there was one girl even less athletic than I was. We were doing the running part of the president's fitness challenge thing and unlike me, she was trying. Really, really trying. Panting for breath, tears running down her face as the other students, who'd already finished, called derisive remarks at her - and the gym teacher, rather than putting a stop to it, joined in. So much gym rage. There's a big difference between encouraging healthy competition and encouraging bullying. And while kids do need to learn that life is going to be full of jerks and hurtful people, they shouldn't have to deal with it coming from adults who are supposed to be teachers and role models.

In a more cool-headed mood, the thing that angers me about my childhood gym class is that we were never taught anything. It was never; these are your core muscles, here's how to use them, here's how to train them, here's why it's important. It was just: Do these situps. As many as you can, as fast as possible. Go. You can't do situps? Well, you must not be trying, then.

You know, I probably just had a really lousy gym teacher.

[Sylvaa]

Perhaps I was just lucky - but gym wasn't too bad for me. I was semi-athletic (generally picked in the good healthy middle of the pack).

 

One year though - one year! I wanted to impress a boy I thought was really cute and tried really hard in floor hockey. He stepped on my foot, I fell, and crack - I broke my foot.  

 

Lunch on the other hand; lunch was the bane of my existence. Lunch put way too many kids from way too many social groups into a small area. I remember kids throwing hoagies on our table so they would explode, "accidentally" getting food spilled on me, and all that sort of stuff.  Looking back though, it was a way for me to grow stronger. Some people, for whatever reason, are going to be mean. Learning how to deal with it tactfully has helped me tremendously as an adult.

 

At least where my kids go to school, there is such an emphasis on anti-bullying that it doesn't seem to be near as bad as it was. It is great because my kids still love school - we'll see if it continues as they start high school.

 

As far as the reunion thing goes - my 15th high school reunion is this year.  I plan on rocking it. 

[Mark D]

I think competitiveness is a good thing, it teaches you to lose, and to learn from losing.  Got picked last for the team?  Didn't get the job you really wanted?  Woman you really like turned you down?  All forms of rejection, and if you don't learn to deal with it as a kid you'll have a hard time dealing with it as an adult, and about things that REALLY matter to you, much more than who won that day's softball game in gym class matters.

 

As far as the scars of a young nerd, I went the other route.  I didn't form scars, I formed calluses, I really didn't care.  To this day, at age 51, I can count the number of people whose opinion of me matters to me on my fingers.  Frankly, anyone else can perform an anatomically improbable act of self copulation.  So while I wouldn't relive my high school years for all the tea in China (largely because it was mostly boring), I don't feel emotional about the things that happened.

 

Oh yes, in my senior year I wound up in a predominantly freshman gym class.  I'd reached nearly my full height of 5'11" and weighed 210   I got picked early for touch football, I WAS the line, I was six inches taller and 50 pounds heavier that just about everyone else.  One day we were working out in the weight room during bad weather and one of my classmates was leg-pressing 190 pounds, he got up and asked me (with a smirk) if I thought I could do that.  I did, with one leg.  

[IslandGirl_Becks]

Been there. 

 

I was pretty athletic as a little kid - no tv, and lots of playing outside and running on logs on the beach. I lost that when  my family moved, I developed some insecurities, and buried myself in the  'net (as long as my parents could handle me blocking the phone line). Puberty didn't help, either. I was always 2nd to last picked for kickball, football, basketball... anything. It was humiliating. I got out of  middle school gym class with "independent study," and did the same in high school. My dad offered bribes to my friends if they could get me to turn out for a sport. The more they pushed, the more fear I felt about being humiliated. Not doing sports became my "thing." I was a brain who liked the outdoors, but not an athlete. 

 

I finally had to take a gym class my last semester of senior year. It was "outdoor adventure," there were only 3 other girls (who all made me look athletic), and I liked it. It was... fun? It helped that a  super athletic friend (who I'd had a crush on since 10th grade) encouraged me and stuck with me during running. By the end of the year, I was showing up in afternoons to play Ultimate and lamenting the fact I'd never really stuck with a sport. By the time I started college, I was training for a marathon. Because my librarian told me I could. 

 

I am glad I took that one gym class. I learned to draw positive energy off of the people around me, rather than assuming that they would tear me down. I  still struggle with healthy competition and having confidence in myself,  still think of myself as the one who will certainly be picked last for sports, but decided that I want to play anyways for my own  enjoyment. Oh, and the guy who encouraged me? 6 years later we started dating. 

[Raincloak]

I still get depressed at award ceremonies and avoid most of my high school community to this day. It wasn't a time I like to remember. And that is okay. I like myself more now, as I get older and get to choose people and things I actually enjoy, and that gives me confidence when I do have to deal with people who knew me back then as a little loser.

I always make sure to dress nice and mentally review my resume ("so what are you doing these days? Oh nothing much, just winning prizes and saving orphans, etc") before alumni events. You may not feel awesome inside, but you can pretend, and you WILL convince them, if not yourself, of your current awesomeness.

Many of the bullies do grow up. Those that don't tend to have unhappy, dysfunctional adult lives. Not sure if that's any consolation, but it should be.

[nica5674]

The thought of gym class still makes my blood boil to this day. The bane of my existence for all of middle school and high school was the twice yearly fitness testing. The attitude from all the gym teachers was 100% that anyone who couldn't do well just wasn't trying. For better or for worse, 90% of the year anyone who "didn't want to play"(wasnt good at playing) was allowed to walk laps around the track or gym instead. Cool, I hated most sports anyway. Fine by me.

But then when these testing days started they would pull stuff like "working up to running a mile." How?

Day 1: run a lap around the track.

Day 2: run 2.5 laps around the track

Day 3: times mile run (under 12 minutes to pass)

Days 4-6: anyone who didn't make 12 minutes had to try again.

If you stopped jogging before the end of the number of laps for that day/you got yelled at and if you didn't start again, didn't get credit.

All this accomplished was convincing me that I was horribly out of shape. But instead of encouraging me to want to change that, it convinced me that I would never be an athletic person, that I didn't have it in me, that I couldn't do it, and that if I couldn't run a 12 minute mile, there was no point in trying. And this was from someone who didn't give up easily most of the time. For years, I would put in 110% effort at work, school, and extracurricular activities, but anything fitness related was just something that I couldn't do.

It took me 3 years away from that environment to even think about trying again, and, on my own terms, I ran a 5k last spring. I still want to somehow explain to them how wrong and absolutely demoralizing their "method" was, but I don't think they would care at all. The saving grace was that some of my classmates had much more compassion than the gym teachers for the girl red in the face and on the verge of tears. I remember on several occasions classmates I wasn't even great friends with running their mile, lapping back around, and hanging out with/trying to encourage me. In my experience, the teachers were much bigger bullies than the kids.

[stealthstitcher]

All this accomplished was convincing me that I was horribly out of shape. But instead of encouraging me to want to change that, it convinced me that I would never be an athletic person, that I didn't have it in me, that I couldn't do it, and that if I couldn't run a 12 minute mile, there was no point in trying.

When you think about it, the average gym class is in no way designed to help an out of shape person get in shape. It's more a way for an already physically fit person to get in some light exercise. And I've talked to people who say that they find being insulted or told that they can't do things to be really motivating - they want to prove to the gym teacher or whoever that he/she is wrong and that they can do it. What these teachers need to realize is that only some people find that motivating. Others respond by believing it ("He's right, I can't do this. I guess I'm just a loser like everyone says.") or by getting passive aggressive ("Call me lazy and not trying? Oh, I'll show you lazy and not trying.")

There have got to be a few gym teachers out there who are/were really great, right?

[Nubbins McGee]

 What [people] need to realize is that only some people find that motivating. 

 

So as a young Sergeant in the Army, this was perhaps the most critical leadership lesson I learned: In order to influence someone to accomplish an objective, you have to tailor the messaging to their individual style.

 

Case in point:  I had two soldiers in my squad that were friends.  They were both the same age, the same rank, they both liked a lot of the same things, they hung out together when they weren't working, and the were both even from the same state (albeit, a couple of hours away from each other).  You would think that these two were essentially interchangeable, especially given that they had the exact same job.

 

Nothing could be further from the truth. One of them, if I would so much as look at him cross, would sulk for days.  If I yelled at him, he'd be worthless for a week.  I mean, he would literally hang his head down, drag his feet, and look for all the world like a kicked puppy.  It was nuts.  If he did something wrong, I had to say "You know I think you're the best soldier in this squad right?  You just shot expert on the range this week, You've got a 275 PT score, you did great in the Sergeant Major's inspection too!  I'm glad you're around to set an example for the younger guys.  There is one little thing that I think you could do better on though..."

 

Seriously.  I had to preamble every criticism like that if I wanted him to hear the critique and not just pout.

 

The other guy was the exact opposite.  If I didn't get in his face screaming and foaming at the mouth at least once a week about something, he thought no one was paying attention to him and he'd go do something really stupid.  I very seriously pulled the Sergeant and the Corporal who worked for me aside one day and said "You know we've got a four day weekend coming up. If we don't find a reason to yell at [soldier's name] today he's going to go out and get arrested with drugs and a hooker this weekend."  We had a brainstorming session to try to find a reason for him to be in trouble before we were off for four days so he would feel like he was being observed.  I ended up taking him into the Platoon room, slamming the door, and threatening him with a fate worse than death because he had one boot laced up right over left and the other laced left over right.  True story.  I made him get AR 670-1 (the manual that covers wear and appearance of the uniform) and research the right way to lace his boots.  

 

As long as that guy always felt like he was in trouble, he did great.  As soon as we relaxed on him, he went off and got in trouble.  We ended up kicking him out for smoking dope.  *shrug*

 

The point is, even nearly 20 years later, I always think about the lesson in that and tailor my message to my audience.  It's a lesson that has served me well.

[Grifball]

Like so many other people in this thread, gym was never a fun time for me as a kid, but I was an incredibly soft and sensitive kid. I had no grit. I didn't develop a spine until I was about 20/21. Now that I'm older, I'm in no better shape than I was, but my mental attitude is completely 180 from who I was back then.

 

Now when I go do something physical with a friend, I have a blast failing at it. I got my butt kicked all around the room playing racquetball with a friend a few weeks ago. A couple games in (something like 13-4 and 13-7), he says, "Are you having fun with this?" like he was worried he should be taking it easy on me. I was having a ton of fun. Now that I'm more mentally tough, I don't mind being the guy who sucks at stuff, because I know I'm going to keep at it and suck less the next time.

[IslandGirl_Becks]

I always make sure to dress nice and mentally review my resume ("so what are you doing these days? Oh nothing much, just winning prizes and saving orphans, etc") before alumni events. You may not feel awesome inside, but you can pretend, and you WILL convince them, if not yourself, of your current awesomeness.

 

If you don't believe you're awesome, it's hard to expect anyone else to think you're awesome. (And yeah, you are awesome!) 

[Trewest]

I've been 5'7 since I was 11, and for a girl that's pretty tall. I've also always been heavy. But my dad was an American football player, my mom was a sprinter, they both played tennis and skiied in the winter. So I grew up around sports. I can throw a spiral football pretty freaking far, I can tackle with the best of them, I play a mean game of tennis,and can ski pretty much anything. Add in some soccer and baseball as well and gym should have been easy for me.

 

Problem was that in grade school, I was despised by my classmates. As in, I had a circle of ten of the jerks kick the living daylights out of me one day because I dared walk near their group. Some come gym class, I always knew I would be the last one picked, and I always knew that whatever it was we were playing, I was going to get hit; often by my own teammates. And because I was big and hefty, they never broke anything, but they never felt the need to hold back either. I got baseballs to chest, shoved into various walls etc... never when the teacher was looking though.

 

And then track and field day came around and it turns out I can put an shot put pretty freaking far. And lob a baseball a good distance too. So even though the kids hated me, I ended up on the field team for the competition. And won first place for shot put, long throw (both girls and boys on that one because my classmates were assholes who put my name in with the guys to try and embarass me. And then I out threw all the guys anyways, and the officials weren't going to award me the win but all the guys I beat insisted) and ended up subbing in on the relay team when one of the runner fell down the bleachers and I ended up helping the girls pull into second place (I'm not a fast runner, but it turns out I REALLY don't like being passed when I run and I'll book it until I throw up).

 

I liked highschool after all that because I had simply learned to stop caring about people trying to bring me down. I'd spent 10 years trying to do everything I could to get people to like me, or at least tolerate me. After that I stopped caring and by the end of high school, most of my worst tormentors had ended up apologizing to me. The one who'd beaten the crap out of me several times was already in juvie by that point too.

 

I still have insecurities. I still struggle with a huge sense of 'if I don't serve a purpose they won't tolerate my presence' but I try to ignore that as much as possible. If people don't want me around, they can either ask me to leave or try to make me leave. And at 5'7 and currently 202 lbs, I'm awfully hard to push around now.

[Companion]

School stuff can be super triggering. I'm glad they tore my school down and built a new one.

[Ahyar Dreamspark]

Aaahh, school, the source of decades of low confidence and terrible lack of self-worth.

 

Until a few months ago, school used to be terribly triggering, with the pervasive "everyone hates you and you'll never fit in" sentiment. It took a long time, but I eventually realized that 1) not everyone hates me, and 2) that fitting in is overrated. Now I'm looking forward to the 20-year reunion, where I'm going to be fitter and hotter than everyone else in my graduating class. I also want to be more successful, but...eh, I still have 4 years to make something happen.

 

Just watch, I won't even be invited to the 20-year reunion lol.

[StoneMonkey]

My "friends" back in school took great pleasure in making me look like an idiot. A few of them went around telling the other kids that I was autistic.. and then dyslexic when they realized that they didn't know what autism actually meant!

Kids can be brutal, let me tell you. I remember this one kid who spent years calling me stupid, telling people I had learning difficulties and what not.. and tried to justify it by telling me that he was trying to make me tougher. I didn't ask for that at all! See, he was convincing himself that bullying me was the right thing to do because, you know, calling it what it actually was would be putting him in a bad light. It's interesting how some folks, convinced that they're the good guys, can twist something like bullying into a positive thing in their minds.

I didn't have the sense to tell anybody about this and I was far too timid to do the right thing and kick his ass. 

 

I'm glad I got out of that environment. Leaving that school behind marked the beginning of my improvement when it came to academics, too. Want to reach for the stars? Get yourself out of the gutter first. ^^

[Mark D]

My "friends" back in school took great pleasure in making me look like an idiot. A few of them went around telling the other kids that I was autistic.. and then dyslexic when they realized that they didn't know what autism actually meant!

Kids can be brutal, let me tell you. I remember this one kid who spent years calling me stupid, telling people I had learning difficulties and what not.. and tried to justify it by telling me that he was trying to make me tougher. I didn't ask for that at all! See, he was convincing himself that bullying me was the right thing to do because, you know, calling it what it actually was would be putting him in a bad light. It's interesting how some folks, convinced that they're the good guys, can twist something like bullying into a positive thing in their minds.

I didn't have the sense to tell anybody about this and I was far too timid to do the right thing and kick his ass. 

 

I'm glad I got out of that environment. Leaving that school behind marked the beginning of my improvement when it came to academics, too. Want to reach for the stars? Get yourself out of the gutter first. ^^

 

 

Uh huh, except when I went to school there was no autistic nor dyslexic, they just called me retarded (partly because I stammered, in large part due to nerves because I feared being called retarded, vicious cycle there).  Until, of course, those jackasses who called me retarded needed tutoring in basic arithmetic so they could remain eligible to play football, guess who handled a big chunk of math tutoring during my junior and senior year of high school?

 

In retrospect, I may have been (and may still be) somewhat Aspie.  Now I don't really care enough to look into it further than some basic online tests that indicate possible Asbergers.  

 

Oh, on the topic of "The past is another country, they do things differently there", in fifth grade I finally stood up to a kid who bullied me and punched him in the mouth.  My teacher (Mr Santangelo) came up to me later that day and said "Mark, I heard you punched (name redacted)."  I replied that I had (and I wouldn't DARE lie to him), and he shook my hand and said "Good job."  Today I'd have been suspended, probably sent for anger management counselling, and possibly expelled.  On the other hand (where I have different fingers), had that happened my parents would have been at the school raising Hell, sliding every teacher, assistant principal, principal and other administrators under it and then dropping it on them.

 

It's amazing how that one incident cut the bullying to a fraction of what it was.